The Passage

19On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

(John 20:19–23)

The Notes

​After Jesus was crucified “for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28), He rose again on the third day and appeared to His followers several times over a forty-day period. On this particular day, He visited several of His disciples as they gathered for mutual support in a private location somewhere in Jerusalem.

The Terms

“forgive” [aphiēmi]: (1) to dismiss or release someone or something from a place or one’s presence; (1a) with personal object, let go, send away; (1b) with impersonal object, give up, emit; (1c) in a legal sense, divorce; (2) to release from legal or moral obligation or consequence, cancel, remit, pardon; (3) to move away, with implication of causing a separation, leave, depart from; (4) to have something continue or remain in a place, leave standing/lying (without concerning oneself further about it); (5) to convey a sense of distancing through an allowable margin of freedom, leave it to someone to do something, let, let go, allow, tolerate.

William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer,A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 156–157.

“sin” [hamartia]: (1) a departure from either human or divine standards of uprightness; (2) a state of being sinful, sinfulness; (3) a destructive evil power.

William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer,A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 50–51.

“withhold forgiveness” [krateō]: (1) to accomplish something by overcoming obstacles, attain; (2) to use one’s hands to establish a close contact, hold; (3) to take control of someone or something, seize, control; (4) to hold up or serve as a foundation for something, hold upright, support; (5) to control in such a way that something does not happen, hold back; (6) to adhere strongly to, hold; (7) to cause a condition to continue, hold in place.

William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer,A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 564–65.

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